Dooley Says He’s Watching What UT Is Paying Recruiting Services

 Send This Story To A Friend

Everybody does it.  When it comes to hiring recruiting services to provide videos of players and contact information, that’s pretty much true.  Every school pays them for info and game tape.  (In Oregon’s case and a few others, questions have arisen regarding what else the services might have provided, but that’s a different story.)

Tennessee — traditionally — has had one of if not the highest recruiting budget in the SEC.  As one of the “big six” programs in the league, the Vols have competed with Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia and LSU while having the weakest in-state recruiting base of the bunch.  So it makes sense that they would spend the most money on outside services. 

But according to Derek Dooley, he’s careful about what he spends and where he spends it:


“We’re not trying to be cheap, but also there’s a little bit of fiscal responsibility in not being grossly excessive.  It’s easy in these kinds of programs because you’ve got so many people and plenty of money not to have that oversight.  That’s where excess can happen.

There’s obviously no abuse and we’re getting good return on investment.  I think every year we need to revisit it, and that’s what we’ve done.”


The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that Tennessee’s pay-outs to recruiting services has risen from Phillip Fulmer to Lane Kiffin to Dooley.